,^^ MASSACHUSETTS 

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOaY, 



BOSTON 



COURSES OF ESrSTRUCTION 



RBLATINQ TO 



HYGIENE, SANITAEY SCIENCE, AND BIOLOai. 



PREPARED FOR THE MBBTINe OF 



MASSACHUSETTS MEDICAL SOCIETY, 



IN BOSTON, JUNE 7 and 8, 1892. 



BOSTON: 

ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 

24 Franklin Street. 

1892, 



MASSACHUSETTS 

INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 



COUKSES OF INSTRUCTION RELATING TO HYGIENE, 
SANITARY SCIENCE, AND BIOLOGY. 



Prepared for the meeting of Massachusetts Medical Society, 
IN Boston, June 7 and 8, 1892. 



The instruction given at the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology comprises, in addition to six branches of Engi- 
neering, namely, Civil, Mechanical, Mining, Electrical , 
Chemical, and Sanitary Engineering, courses in Architec- 
ture, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Geology, and Political 
Science. 

All of these subjects are more or less nearly related to 
the public health, and it has been the aim of the Faculty of 
the Institute to give due weight to all questions of hygiene, 
which properly form part of these courses of instruction. 
The intimate connection between many of these subjects and 
the sanitary welfare of the community is at once apparent 
when we consider that the building of water works and 
sewers devolves on the Engineer, that the sanitary construc- 
tion of houses, their drainage and ventilation, belongs to the 
Architect, and that the tests for purity of our food, air, 
and water rest on the authority of the Chemist and Biolo- 
gist. 

In all the departments of instruction, prominence is given 
to laboratory work. Not only in Chemistry, Physics, and 
Biology, where the laboratory is an essential feature of all 
modern instruction, but also in the Engineering departments, 
actual experience with machines and tests of their efficiency 



are required of the student. Original investigations and 
designs form a part of the work of the senior year * and the 
ability to do original work is a necessary qualification for 
graduation. 

In all the technical courses of the Institute there is also 
considerable time devoted to studies of a general character, — 
Language, Literature, History, and Political Science, that 
the graduates may not lack for these essential qualifications 
of an educated man. 

In the following pages is given, in some detail, a description 
of the courses of instruction which relate especially to 
hygiene and sanitar}^ matters, f The first place is appropri- 
ately given to Biologj^, which forms one of the main depart- 
ments of the Institute. 



DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY. 

This department of the Institute is especially connected 
with sanitary and medical science, for Biology, the science 
of life, includes not only physiology, the science of function, 
and morphology, the science of form, but also aetiology, the 
science of causation, and pathology, the science of disease. 
As sub-divisions of zoology and botanj- it includes, also, 
anatomy, histology, anthropology, sociology, bacteriology, 
and sanitary science. 

General Biology is used a^ the introductory subject, and 
it is taken by second-year students. In this course the 
elementary anatomy and physiology of organisms, in general, 



* For iustauce, during the present term at the Institute, students of 
the senior class have been investigating the efhcieucy of many kinds of 
fans used for the ventilation of buildings. 

t Those who desire further information of the Institute as a whole are 
referred to the annual catalos^ue. 



3 

are studied from representative examples of plants and ani- 
mals. Such subjects as organs, tissues, cells, protoplasm, 
differentiation, vital energy, work, adaptation, environment, 
primitive metabolism, and the fundamental physiological 
properties of all living things, are dwelt upon and made real 
by laboratory exercises upon illustrative forms. The use 
of the microscope is emphasized ; its special construction 
and employment, for measuring, drawing, and other. techni- 
cal purposes, are made the subject of fifteen separate exer- 
cises in the second half of the same year. In this year, also. 
General Zoology and General Botany are taught as essential 
preliminaries to higher and more special work. 

In the third year the subjects become still more special 
and semi-professional. Comparative Anatomy is taught in 
a long course of dissections of, first, a few invertebrates 
(hydra, starfish, clam, lobster, insect), stress being laid on 
the parasitic forms, and, secondly, of typical vertebrates, 
especially mammals. The importance of this course, as the 
only sound foundation of anatomy, and the key to many 
aberrant phenomena in man, as well as its demonstration cf 
the fundamental facts of evolution, cannot be overestimated. 
One of the most promising fields, now open to the medical 
sciences, lies in Comparative Biology, which includes Com- 
parative Anatomy, Comparative Embryology, Comparative 
Physiology, and Comparative Pathology. The recent dis- 
coveries of Metschnikoff have awakened the liveliest inter- 
est in the comparative pathology of inflammation, as well as 
in practical hygiene. No one can really appreciate these 
revelations who is not acquainted with Comparative Anat- 
omy, Comparative Physiology, and the role of phagocytes 
in the removal from animal bodies of dead matter as Avell 
as parasitic germs. Cryptogamic Botan}^ is also a third year 
subject ; and the splendid labors of Pasteur, which have 
given to the world the first reasonable explanation of the ^ti- 



ology of zymotic disease, compel the thorough student of 
medical science to know the botanical relations of micro- 
phytes in all their complexity. A special course in micro- 
organisms gives opportunity for comparing the microzoa 
with the microphytes, and for comprehending such subjects 
as parasitism and sex. 

It is in the fourth year, however, that the relations of 
Biology to Medicine become most apparent. Comparative 
Physiology is here the principal subject ; and in this confer- 
ences are held five times a week throughout the year. These 
are associated with dissections and laboratory work, physical 
and chemical, upon living or fresh animal tissues. 

Bacteriology, with special reference to sanitary work, is a 
prominent feature of the year. The students learn how to 
make their own culture media, how to examine milk, water, 
air, ice, soil, etc, for pathogenic germs, and how to test the 
efficiency of filters, sterilizers, and germicides. Here, as in 
all the other courses mentioned, constant laboratory work is 
required. In higher Biology lectures are given upon Dar- 
winism, heredity, natural selection, degeneration, variation, 
phagocytosis, immunity, etc. In this year also an oppor- 
tunity is offered for work in organic chemistry and in the 
organic laboratory. 

Especially noteworthy are the courses upon Sanitary Science. 
In one of these the biological phenomena of communities, 
such as population, birth rate, death rate, morbidity, lethality, 
are studied. Ancient and modern theories of disease are 
reviewed and compared ; the causes of death ; longevity and 
other social phenomena ; the origin and natural history of 
epidemics ; the pollution and the purification of water ; the 
disposal of sewage, garbage, and the dead ; the phenomena 
of dust and its dangers ; the pollution of milk, food stuffs, and 
ice ; the self-purification of rivers ; and the like, are dealt with 
from the point of view of Sanitary Biology, Sanitary Science, 
and the Public Health. 



DEPARTMENT OF CHEMISTRY. 

The course in Chemistry comprises instruction in general, 
theoretical, analytical, organic, industrial, and sanitary 
chemistry, by text-book, lectures, and laboratory practice. 
The chemical laboratories afford accommodations for five 
hundred and fifty students in fifteen rooms. The laboratory 
of general chemistry has places for three hundred and twenty 
students, and during the past year three hundred and twenty- 
five students have been working here. The analytical labor- 
atory can accommodate one hundred and fifty students and 
possesses every convenience for accurate and rapid analytical 
work. The organic laboratories have places for thirty stu- 
dents, the sanitary laboratories for sixteen students, and the 
industrial laboratories for thirty students. During the pres- 
ent year two more large rooms will be converted into 
chemical laboratories. The equipment of the laboratories 
in permanent fittings and in apparatus is unsurpassed in this 
country. The chemical library has more than five thousand 
volumes and two thousand pamphlets, and is kept in the 
reading room of the department. It contains complete sets 
of the most important chemical periodicals. 

The description of the course of instruction in the Chemi- 
cal Department will be limited, in this publication, to the spec- 
ial department of Sanitary Chemistry which has immediate 
bearing on matters relating to the public health. The prin- 
cipal work here is the examination of air, water, and food, — 
the three essentials of healthy living. The student is not per- 
mitted to take this work in Sanitary Chemistry unless he has 
successfully pursued, for one year, a course in general chem- 
istry with laboratory practice, followed by a year of qualita- 
tive and quantitative analysis. Problems of the importance 
of those with which the sanitary chemist has to deal, should 
not be undertaken except by one well equipped both in chem- 



ical knowledge and in chemical practice. The course in air 
analysis consists in a series of examinations of samples of 
air taken at a number of points in a room, and a study of 
the conditions affecting the results.* 

The regular work in the examination of foods consists in 
the analysis of butter, milk, oleomargarine, flour, etc., and 
facilities are given for special investigations of all kinds of 
food. As a simple illustration of the method of instruction, 
tending to make one cautious in drawing conclusions from 
his work, may be cited an exercise given to the students to 
determine the composition of a sample of milk in its upper, 
lower, and middle third, after transportation by cars or 
wagon, and after standing varying lengths of time. In the 
same line of work, the student is led to investigate the re- 
lations of the lactic to the putrefactive fermentations in milk. 

In sanitary water analysis, the Institute of Technology 
occupies an unique position in the schools of the country. 
The great work of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, 



* Compare witli ttie course in heating and ventilation in the Department 
of Physics. 

As an illustration of the character of this work may be given the fol- 
lowing results actually obtained by the students on two occasions in ana- 
lyzing air for carbonic acid every ten minutes during the occupancy of a 
room. The capacity of the room (with sloping floor) was 25,000 cubic 
feet, with an average height of thirteen feet. The samples were taken on 
one side of the room away from the windows at a point eight feet below 
the ceiling. Two hundred students entered the room at twelve and left 
at one o'clock. 



TiJIE. 

11.30 
12.15 
12.25 
12.35 
12.45 
12.55 
1.05 
1.40 



Parts op Carbonic Acid in 10,000. 



Dec. 15, 1890. 


Mar. 20, 1891 


4.95 


3.89 


13.97 


6.07 


15.27 


8.44 


13.76 


11.29 


12.03 


11.37 


11.73 


10.56 


6.32 


6.62 


4.19 


3.72 



in the investigation of the public water supplies of the State, 
has been carried on in the chemical and biological laborato- 
ries of the Institute under the charge of the professors of Chem- 
istry and Biology. Marked improvements in the methods of 
chemical and biological examination of waters have been 
made in the course of this work. During the past five years, 
nearly ten thousand samples of water have been examined, 
and the study of the results has given conclusions of the 
highest value. The connection between the chemical and 
biological composition of natural waters, and their influence 
on health, are now better understood than ever before, and a 
great part of the previously existing literature on this subject 
has been superseded'as the result of this investigation. The 
students of the Institute have the privilege of following this 
work, which is still in progress, in connection with their own 
study of water analysis. 



DEPARTMENT OF SANITARY ENGINEERING. 

All the students of Civil Engineering receive instruction in 
Sanitary Engineering, but there is also a distinct course in 
this subject, in which the work is differentiated from that of 
the regular civil-engineering course, by the substitution of 
chemical and biological study for some of the work in rail- 
road and bridge engineering. The object sought, in this 
arrangement, is to give the student reasonable familiarity 
with the practice and with the literature of the chemist and 
the biologist, as related to problems of water supply and 
sewage disposal. 

The student in the course in Sanitary Engineering has, in 
the first year, a very complete course of study and labora- 
tory practice in general chemistry, followed, in succeeding 
years, b}^ the elements of organic chemistry, analytical 
chemistry, water analysis, air analysis, the chemistry of 



8 

natural waters, and theories of water purification, and sewage 
disposal. Similarly, he pursues, in order, the study of gen- 
eral biology, biology of micro-organisms, bacteriology^ and 
sanitary biology. These studies, also, are supplemented by 
practice in the laboratory, and the student is taught to 
observe and to identify the various animal and vegetable 
organisms present in natural waters and in sewage. 

The more strictly engineering studies, bearing upon san- 
itary work, which are pursued, are those of the construction, 
heating, ventilation, and drainage of buildings ; of the 
designing and construction of works for the collection, 
storage, purification, conveyance, and distribution of water; 
and of the arrangement and proportioning of systems of 
sewers and of works for sewage treatment and disposal. 

Instruction in sanitary-engineering subjects is given vari- 
ously by the aid of lectures, text-books, problems, and draw- 
ing-room exercises. Since this branch of engineering is, in 
large degree, concerned with applications of the principles 
of hydraulics, much time is devoted to that subject. The 
student is made familiar with the laws governing the pressure 
of water, and its flow through pipes, canals, and other 
conduits, and with the methods applicable to the meas- 
urement of the volume of flowing water, by orifices, 
weirs, nozzles, meters, etc. Careful measurements are 
made of the flow of some river by means both of current 
meters and of floats, and this work is supplemented by 
in-door practice in the hydraulic laboratory, where a 
variety of experiments are made upon the flow of water, 
and in tests of efficiency of pumps, turbines, and other 
motors. This laboratory is fitted with appliances, probably 
nowhere excelled, for the prosecution of either class work or 
individual research in hydraulics. In the drawing room the 
student is required to make a complete design for a system 
of sewers for a portion of a town, determining the align- 



9 

ment, grades, aud sizes in detail ; and, in so far as time will 
allow, various other problems, such as the designing of large 
sewers, dams, standpipes, and other structures, are worked 
out. 

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE. 

In the department of architecture, there is taught, in the 
courses relating to hygiene, the practical methods of land 
drainage, in the various contingencies that may occur, to 
insure a healthy site for buildings. Plumbing is carefully 
considered in all its parts. The house system is first planned ; 
the proper construction of lines of iron soil pipes is shown, in 
their joint connections ; and the arrangement of air pipes to 
insure a constant circulation of fresh air throughout the sys- 
tem. The various schemes for the disposal of sewage, by 
cesspool, sewer, or subsoil irrigation, are discussed. The 
various types of traps, water-closets, bowls, bath tubs, sinks, 
etc., are compared, and, finally, the proper methods of con- 
necting them with the soil pipes are explained, with the final 
tests to prove the tighcness of all joints and connections. 

The department has a very complete set of models to as- 
sist in showing the proper construction of the plumbing sys- 
tem. In the draughting room are given problems in design 
for school buildings, hospitals, theatres, etc., where the 
study of heating, ventilation, and plumbing is an important 
feature. In the final theses, the student is encouraged to 
choose a building in which one of these schemes shall be em- 
bodied in its full importance. 



DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS. 

In this department the subjects which are more immediate- 
ly related to the public health are Heating and Ventilation. 
Instruction is given in these subjects to three classes. 



10 

stadents in Mechanical Engineering, Sanitary Engineering, 
and in Architecture. The study, as pursued by the students 
of these courses has much in common, though, shaped for 
each course with reference to the general work, immediate 
and prospective, of the classes named. With the class made 
up largely of students from the department of Mechanical 
Engineering the aim is to give prominence to the mechanics 
of and mechanism for ventilation. With the Architects spe- 
cial attention is given to the construction and arrangement of 
buildings with reference to simplicity of methods for and 
economy and effectiveness in warming and ventilating work, 
and to the adaptation of different methods and appliances to 
the various types of structures, and of working conditions 
encountered in an architect's profession. The studies of the 
Sanitary Engineer emphasize the relations of air to life, the 
methods of warming, cooling, moistening, drying, cleansing, 
or otherwise treating the air ; also the method of measur- 
ing air volumes used for ventilation purposes, and of making 
determinations relative to vitiation or purity, and the methods 
of applying data of such character to the analysis of ventilat- 
ing problems. 

Instruction is given chiefly by lectures. Two books are 
used, Dr. Billings's book on Heating and Ventilation, and 
lithographed notes prepared for the students. Problems are 
given the students for solution, and two of the sections, the 
Sanitary Engineers and the Architects, make inspection of 
buildings illustrating the various types and systems of heat- 
ing and ventilation. 



DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY. 

The instruction in this department bears on sanitary con- 
ditions of living in the lectures on Climatology, and on the 
relation of water-bearing strata to the water supply of 
communities. 



11 

During the progress of the course on Climatology there 
are frequent discussions of the influence which the factors of 
climate have upon the health, comfort, dwellings, and devel- 
opment of mankind. The importance of the ranges of 
temperature, as well as the means ; the suddenness and the 
violence of the changes; the influence of the winds, whether 
cold or hot, moist or dry ; the occurrence of fogs and cloudi- 
ness ; the relation of the humidity of the atmosphere in 
distinction from the rainfall ; and the efl*ects of neio'hborino- 
mountains, plains, deserts, sheets of water, and forests, are 
among the topics considered in their relations to the health- 
fulness of regions. Especial attention is given to the com- 
bined result of all the atmospheric phenomena of a region, 
and to the physical effects which the compound climate has 
upon the inhabitants. 

The discussion of the occurrence of permeable and imper- 
vious layers of rock-materials shows how, by their associa- 
tion, water-bearing strata are formed in which there may be 
considerable hydrostatic pressure. It also treats of how the 
subterranean passage of waters is influenced by cracks and 
joints in the rock, by seams between the layers, and by the 
inclination and continuity of strata. It likewise explains 
how these and other geological conditions may and do affect 
the purity of waters derived from springs and wells, and 
shows the possibility of obtaining unwholesome waters at 
considerable distances from the sources of cheir contamina- 
tion. It also explains how a system of drainage may be 
comparatively safe under one class of geological conditions, 
while in the presence of certain other structures of rock and 
sub-soils it may become the source of positive danger. 

In addition to the above courses of instruction there is 
also an advanced course in Vital Statistics. 



12 

Following are the subjects of some of the theses of stu- 
dents of the graduating classes of the Institute, during the 
last five years, which relate to Hygiene and Biology : — 

Design for a System of Sewerage for the City of Newton, 
Mass. 

A Biological Stud}' of the Charles River at Charles Elver 
Village, and at Newton Upper Falls, and of the Water Supply 
of Newton, Mass. 

A Biological Study of the Water Supply of Waltham, 
Mass., and of the Charles River at Waltham and Watertown. 

The Determination of Organic Matter in Air. 

Projects for Improving the Drainage of the Low Districts 
in Boston. 

A Design for a Quarantine Hospital. 

A Design for a Sewerage System for the Town of Winches- 
ter, Mass. 

A Discussion of the Methods used in Flushing Sewers. 

Stand-pipes, their Construction and Arrangements. 

Thermal Stimuli as a source of Reflex Action. 

An Investigation of the Efi'ect of Electricity on Micro- 
organisms. 

Methods used in Ventilating Sewers. 

The Purification of Water by Vegetable Organisms. 

A Discussion of the Difterent Systems of Water Supply. 

The Microscopical Analysis of Potable Waters bj' a new 
Quantitative Method. 

A Design for the Plumbing System of a City House. 

A Sanitary Bacteriological Study of the Milk Supply of 
Boston. 

A Study of the Zoogloea Stage of Bacteria. 

Distribution of Nitrogen and Phosphorus in the Products 
of Modern Milling. 

The Determination of Nitrosfen in Well Waters. 

o 

The Action of Alumina on Ammonia in Natural Waters. 



13 

A Comparison of Various Sewer Cross Sections with Re- 
spect to Velocity and Discharge. 

A Study of Methods for the Determination of Nitrates in 
Natural Waters. 

The Action of Different Bacteria in the Decomposition of 
Casein and Milk Sugar. 

Amoeba Proteus ; An Investigation of its Life-history and 
Physiology. 

The Flow and Yield of Ground Water. 

Some of the Species of Bacteria found in the Boston 
Water Supply. 

A Design for a System of Water Supply for the Town of 
Walpole, Mass. 

A Design for a Sewerage System for a Portion of the Town 
of Walpole, Mass. 

The Life-history and Physiology of the Thread-leaved Sun- 
dew. 

The Physiology of Digestion in the Starfish. 

The Decomposition of Milk by Bacteria. 

The Physiology of the Circulatory and Nervous Systems 
of the Earth-worm. 

The Occurrence of the Eberth-Gaffky Bacillus in the 
Dejecta of Typhoid Patients. 

The Disposal of Sewage on the Land at Framingham, 
Mass. 

A Study of the Mystic Water Supply of Boston. 

A Study of the Ventilation of Sever Hall of Harvard 
College. 

Design for a System of Sewerage for a part of the Town 
of Wellesley, Mass. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

lililll.lllliUI:li 
030 008 440 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



030 008 440 a 



